


Watson // Watson

by oulfis



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gender Identity, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:56:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oulfis/pseuds/oulfis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it finally happens, it is at breakfast.</p><p>"I say, Watson, confirm a theory for me," Holmes says. His newspaper crackles as he folds it. "Do you feel yourself truly to be a man, or is this a practical arrangement?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watson // Watson

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks are due to my turtledove for prodding me along, and to [havingbeenbreathedout](http://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout) for her generous beta notes.

When it finally happens, it is at breakfast.

"I say, Watson, confirm a theory for me," Holmes says. His newspaper crackles as he folds it. "Do you feel yourself truly to be a man, or is this a practical arrangement?"

/\

Watson swallows her mouthful of tea (Holmes always waits until her mouth is full) and replaces her teacup on its saucer.

"A practical arrangement," she says, and waits.

//

"A man,” he says, and waits.

"Ah," says Holmes. He taps his egg with his spoon, shattering its shell. He scoops out the yolk, bright yellow and glistening, and eats it whole. "I thought so," he adds.

 

_—_

_moustache_

“Watson!” Holmes shouts, bursting into her bedroom shortly after sunrise. “How would you like a false moustache?”

She startles awake and reaches for her gun on instinct, but drops it when she sees his face. He has applied several practice moustaches.

“It is utterly inappropriate for you to be here,” she says.

“I think I have the trick of it,” he says, “a water-insoluble adhesive, removed with alcohol. It ought to pass muster with your average idiot, which is to say, everyone. I think you’d look quite dashing!”

He waggles his eyebrows, each decorated with an upside-down moustache.

 

//

“I am not your— project!” Watson snaps.

Holmes looks mournfully at the needle in his hands, which apparently contains something to do with bull semen.

“I thought you would _like_ to have a moustache,” he says. Watson glares. Holmes hangs his head, looking for all the world like Gladstone after a botched experiment.

Watson sighs.

“Oh, very well,” he says, and rolls up his sleeve.

“Delightful!” Holmes says, reanimating. “I knew you’d see reason. This shall be exciting!” His fingers dance impatiently on Watson’s elbow. “But you must turn around, old boy, the needle does not go into your arm.”

 

—

_disguises_

Shopping for disguises, Holmes asks her opinion of a ladies’ hat.

"Your face is too narrow," she answers. "It won't suit."

"Indeed not," he says. "I rather meant it for you."

She stiffens, turns away. She smooths her moustache, a nervous tic Holmes has not yet apprised her of. She does not say, I have nowhere to wear it, nothing to wear it with. She does not say, it is beautiful. She grinds her teeth so as not to say it.

She says, "Green makes me look sallow."

That evening, the hatbox is in her wardrobe. The hat is navy.

 

//

“But your trunks are such an excellent source of disguises!”

Watson snatches his old college robes from Holmes's protesting hands and shoves his supposed friend out of his bedroom.

“For how long?” he demands.

“No costumer can match the authentic article!”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I always put them back in good condition!”

“That’s not an answer either.” But this is a familiar stalemate, and he sighs his familiar sigh. “Just _ask_ , blast it!” he says, and retreats to examine the trunk.

His uniform— the one he was shot in— has been meticulously restored. But Holmes has not worn it.

 

—

_flowers_

"A gentleman does not give flowers to another gentleman," she says, holding the bouquet away from her body the way men sometimes hold babies, awed and terrified but also tender.

"Then it is fortunate that I am no gentleman," Holmes quips. He slings an arm over her shoulder, but she remains frozen.

"Come, Watson, what was I to do with them?" Holmes pleads. "You know perfectly well I have no one else upon whom to bestow them, as you're the only one who can stand my dreadful eccentricities."

She places them in water, and watches buds bloom for a week.

 

//

Eyes closed, Watson is overwhelmed by the familiar sensations of the hospital: sheets crisp, air sickly floral and antiseptic, body dulled by pain and not quite enough morphine.

But he blinks awake to his own bedroom, and Holmes, surrounded by two hothouses’ worth of flowers.

He coughs, and regrets it. His chest aches under tight bandages.

Holmes is ready with water.

“’M dying?” he croaks.

“On the contrary, old boy. Your experiment has been a great success.”

“Flowers,” he rebuts. Holmes waves them away.

“Well-wishers, naturally. You are very well liked, Watson.”

Holmes takes his hand, and holds it.

 

—

_wound_

Holmes bursts into her bedroom— or rather, he stumbles through the door, and braces himself against the doorframe.

“Watson,” he rasps, and she is already out of bed, pulling open his shirt. Knife wound; glanced off his ribcage, lucky; long and angled, but shallow— five, maybe six stitches. Her terror turns to relief, then anger.

“Blast it all, man, take some care for yourself!” She slaps his uninjured side for emphasis.

Her hand lingers on his bare stomach. She abruptly realises that they are half-dressed in her bedroom, and that Holmes is an attractive man.

She gets her kit.

 

//

It’s one of those hiding-from-angry-murderers moments, huddled together, Holmes bleeding, Watson staunching the wound, Holmes biting his fist for silence— and finally, the footsteps retreat.

Holmes exhales raggedly and drops his hand to pat absently at Watson’s leg.

His breath is hot on Watson’s cheek, hand hot on his thigh. But when he smiles, Watson breaks contact at all the places their bodies touch.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, “I _do_ wish— but— I’m not a woman, I can’t— not even for you.”

“My god, man, do you take me for a fool? Now, please, I’m still bleeding.”

 

—

_dinner_

“Watson, get your hat!” — she jumps to her feet, and reaches to obey— “No, not that one— the navy hat! With the ribbons. I bought you a dress!”

They have a private dinner. Perhaps there is too much wine. Certainly too much port. Fashions have changed and so has Watson’s figure, but the lace at her sleeve is like a homecoming. They discuss boxing and murder and medical mysteries, and they laugh, and all at once she has everything she ever wanted.

 Finding strength in the press of her corset against her back, she pulls him close and kisses him.

 

//

They are at a garish restaurant neither can afford, their third stake-out for a quarry with no intention of appearing, and Holmes's table manners are appalling.

“Can’t we leave?” Watson whines, and Holmes leaps to say, “Certainly!”

Walking home, Holmes takes Watson’s arm and affects a drunken stagger. Their bodies brush with every step, and Watson fails to spot their tail.

At Watson’s bedroom door, Holmes grabs his hand.

“Wait!” Holmes squeaks. “I have… some etchings?”

Watson boggles.

“Are you—” insane?— “ _courting_ me?”

The look of terror on Holmes's face is answer enough; Watson gives in, and kisses him.

 

—

_Watson_

Holmes doesn’t care if half of Scotland Yard thinks he’s an invert, but Watson resists his lustful glances until she has shut and bolted her bedroom door. He pushes her against it, and she melts under his hands.

Her shirt he opens quickly, and then he rests his cheek against her collarbone as he unwraps her, pulling away just the bare minimum necessary for the bandage to pass between their bodies.

She’d wondered, briefly, if he’d want to call her John sometimes and Kitty other times, but as Holmes buries his face in her emerging décolletage, he murmurs, “Watson.”

 

//

Watson would _like_ to undress tidily, jacket draped over a chair to keep its shape, trousers folded to prevent wrinkles, cravat actually untied— but Holmes is an abominable distraction. Shirt only half off, pressed onto the chaise, one hand clinging Holmes’s shoulder, Watson searches with the other for a place to set his cufflinks.

Holmes licks the long line of his scar, and growls, “Watson.”

Watson drops the cufflinks with a moan, and they clatter behind… something. _Abominable._

“Bugger it,” he says, and flings his shirt away.

“That’s the idea.”

Watson’s laugh is cut off as Holmes bites his neck.

 

 

—

_love_

“Christ, Sherlock, I love you," she gasps, "I love you so— ruddy— much."

She is braced against the wall, Holmes kneeling between her legs, and he looks up at her with his familiar self-satisfied smile.

"I know, Watson," he says. "It is one of your more admirable qualities."

He licks his lips like a smug cat and returns to his attentions. She twists her fingers in his hair. I love you too, his tongue spells on her clit, and maybe she doesn't notice, and maybe she does.

Her bad leg gives out as she comes, and Holmes catches her.

 

//

A gentleman does not discuss his feelings.

Holmes is not much of a gentleman, but in this regard he has surprised Watson with his reticence. And now they are embroiled in a contest not be the first to utter that most dangerous of four-letter words. Watson is _not_ surprised by Holmes's stubbornness.

Tangled together on their anniversary, sweaty and swearing, Holmes hovers on the brink:

“I love this,” he moans.

“I love,” a shaky breath, “this.”

“I love,” a long, satisfied sigh, “this, _I love this_.”

Watson shows mercy: “I love you, Holmes.”

“ _God_ , yes, I bloody love you.”

 

—

_Hamish_

"Holmes, I insist that you inform me _before_ running experiments on me."

"I'm terribly sorry, darling," he says, uncontrite, and kisses her. "Which is it?"

"I've missed my monthly again, and I can't think what you've done to me."

"It's not green urine?"

"Green-- no! Should I look for green urine?"

"Yes, and also, you should sit down."

"Dear god. If you've permanently damaged my nethers, it's your pleasure that shall be reduced, and I shan't pity you one whit."

"Watson. Please do not be intentionally obtuse."

She sits.

“Well,” she says, “Shall we? I’ve always liked the name Hamish.”

 

//

Irene Adler has left them a _baby_ , and Holmes is, apparently, delusional. He waves one of the infant’s little fat fists at Watson, and coos, “There’s no need for a fuss.”

“I’m not going to weep and throw crockery, Holmes, I am going to _shoot her!_ And, quite possibly, you!”

“Come, Watson, I thought you were a medical man; a simple look at the child’s earlobes will suffice to prove that it is not mine.” He deposits the baby in Watson’s arms for inspection. “I would be surprised if it were even Irene’s,” he adds. “But it could be yours.”

 

—

_scandal_

They retreat to the seaside. Holmes terrorizes Mrs. Hudson— “Here, a year’s rent! Touch nothing!”— and then he terrorizes the locals— “I require your most comfortable accommodations! And herring!”— and then is simply terrified.

Watson, meanwhile, discovers that decent people will politely fail to notice all manner of incredible things.

Their neighbor does venture, six months in, “I say, Watson, are you quite well?”

“Oh yes,” she says, “I’m simply carrying Holmes's natural child.”

“Lies!” Holmes interrupts, indignant. “Egregious falsehoods! We are duly married before queen and country. Watson is carrying my _legitimate_ child.”

It’s even more effective than lying.

 

//

In the end, no one asks where the child has come from. Most assume him to be Holmes’s, adopted by his more respectable friend. Some suspect Watson of a disreputable sister. When the knowing smiles get too smug, Watson ruins a tea-party by suggesting loudly that Holmes has no monopoly on scandalous behaviour. Holmes mutters despairingly of earlobes.

But by Hamish’s first birthday, they have perfected their polite non-answers, each gleefully implying the other’s paternity.

“Why should the boy need a mother, anyway?” Holmes grumbles, tucking the sleepy child against his shoulder, and Watson can’t help but agree.

 

\/

_at the close_

Fatherhood suits Holmes.

This is not to say that he is particularly attentive; when there’s a case, the boy’s second parent may as well be Mrs. Hudson. But Holmes finds in his son a replacement for the pipe, a balm for his boredom in the between times— and a source of pride, too.

Lying on the rug, offering advice and running commentary as Hamish fumbles with a puzzle-box, Holmes rolls over to grin up at Watson.

“This flat-sharing business has turned out admirably,” he says.

Watson smiles, doodling in the corner of a manuscript. “It has, hasn’t it?”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Watson // Watson [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3451541) by [OtterPods (LapOtter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapOtter/pseuds/OtterPods)




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